Developers / Distributor – EA Homepage
Genre – Strategy Some screenshots from games homepage
Introduction
I love the Lord of the Rings films although I wouldn't go as far as to say that I’m a true Tolkien fan-boy as I’ve only seen the movies and I’ve only read part of the books. Nevertheless when I first heard of The Battle for Middle-Earth I was intrigued, especially with the concept of a campaign map. Could this be a Rome: Total War style game, but set with Elves, Orcs and hobbits? I was hoping the answer would be a resounding yes.
Compatibility
I think someone in the technical department must have been smoking Hobbit pipe weed when they came up with these specifications. Built on the C&C Generals engine it will be no surprise that when you have hundreds of individual units on screen at once you’re going to get some major slowdown with the detail and resolution turned up.
Throughout the game, with specifications put at the games recommended level, I suffered from noticeable slowdown. Whilst it didn’t affect the majority of my game by the time I got to the last few major battles (when hundreds of units are on screen at once) it was pretty unplayable. In fact, the only reason I survived on the last level was not because I was in control of my game, but because the time limit for the level ran out! The slow down was that bad.
If you have anything below my system I can only cringe at what you'll witness (unless you are willing to turn the settings to ghastly resolutions and detail levels).
